Animal Farm hits Britain in the guise of sexual orientation equality

I’d like to think this is a joke, but modern Britain being modern Britain, I’m actually sure it’s not. One can only hope that at least some people will give the correct response to such an intrusive, inappropriate question: “Bugger off!”

Are you straight or gay? Police and nurses to be asked their sexuality in new equality drive

Millions of teachers, nurses and policemen could be asked to disclose their sexuality, religion and race as part of a new Coalition equality drive.

Lib Dem equalities minister Lynne Featherstone says all public sector organisations should consider sending ‘diversity monitoring forms’ to staff to prove they are treating all sections of society fairly.

[snip]

Her plans are suggested in a guide to how public bodies should comply with the Act. Critics fear it will lead to an avalanche of bureaucracy and expense just as jobs are under threat and budgets are slashed.

[snip]

It also says that complying with the equality duty ‘may involve treating some people better than others, as far as this is allowed by discrimination law’. (Emphasis mine.)

Is it just me, or did that last sentence sound purely Orwellian? “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”

I can see it now–secret clubs where you can meet unrelated members of the opposite sex, in the backrooms of a Walmart, the basements of decommissioned churches, maybe even–if they’re desperate to avoid the secret police, staffed by sexual hipsters–bowling alleys. Closeted heterosexuals who believe in monogamy will develop discreet cultural signals–maybe the lack of tattoos for the women, a tie for the men.

Danny Lemieux

I suppose any applicant could claim that they were gay in order to get a better job and later say, “I changed my mind”.
Sounds like a Monty Python skit.

excathedra

The Brits have been having a long and increasingly messy and pathetic post-Imperial breakdown. They always did have a large measure of prudery and now it’s switched from sex to PC.

excathedra

An overemphasis on equality, to the detriment of other important civil values –like freedom– always brings on a continually metastizing police state. An egalitarian world, being so unnatural, can only be achieved by coercion and control.

Gloria Steinam, my favorite Playboy bunny, once said something to the effect that, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. I’m looking forward, with bated breath, to when all citizens will be required to produce evidence of their homosexual experience in order to prove that they are not “homophobic”.

suek

>>I’m looking forward, with bated breath, to when all citizens will be required to produce evidence of their homosexual experience in order to prove that they are not “homophobic”.>>

I’ve kind of wondered about this and the military, with the DADT policy. If it comes out that you’re homosexual, you get ousted. Well, suppose you wanted to get out, but they wouldn’t _let_ you out before the end of your enlistment – why wouldn’t someone claim or act in such a way as to indicate that they were homosexual – and get booted out? Sort of a Klinger thing. Didn’t work for him…would it have worked in a DADT army? I’ve wondered…!

I have no idea if this is true but I’ve always been told that, to become an Israeli citizen, you simply had to declare yourself a Jew. After all, in an antisemitic world, who in their right mind would say they were Jewish, if they weren’t. This changed, or so I was told, with the Soviets, when they reversed their former stand of refusing to allow Jews to leave. Suddenly, it was in the interest of a whole bunch of Russians to declare their suddenly discovered Jewishness. As I said, I don’t know if that’s urban myth or real, but I suspect that the situation is analogous to DADT and the effort to get kicked out of the military.

11B40

Greetings: especially “suek”

What you seem to be suggesting (in item# 10) is analogous to the “pregnancy” out n’estce pas ???

Back in the early eighties, I was working, as a civilian printer, for our Navy. One day I was checking out a manual we were to print and came across an illustration of the Navy’s pregnancy uniform. I thought to myself that the Navy had seriously gone of the nautical equivalent of the tracks. The issue of pregnancy in the military tends to be ignored or downwardly played, yet it is still there and will continue to be there for those who would take such advantage.

it seems to me that our leftist/socialist/statist brothers and sisters continue to slice away at our military salami. It started with the deep-sixing of the draft, then the expansion of female participation (the Navy is now interested in increasing it to 20%), and, most recently, the repeal of the infamous “DADT” which, of course, was a delegitimization of what policy there was prior. There is no evidence that convinces me that our military is better, quicker, stronger, faster than it was before we went on the “social justice” crusade. None of the policy developers/implementers has made a case for increased military effectiveness. This policy change will require the use of scare resources and add managerial complexity to the most complex and dangerous of human endeavors.

Not long ago, during the dire days in Iraq, our military members were severely stressed by longer tours of duty and shorter respites. That problem has not be addressed or resolved. Yet, our rulers seem ready and intent on making our military organizations submit to their schoolboy fantasies. This is the Long March through our institutions. This is the tyranny of the minorities.

Maybe I’m missing something here (I know, it wouldn’t be the first time) but I read this as simply saying that affirmative action might be applied to ensure the proper ratios (whatever those ratios are determined to be) of hiring by sexual orientation, and perhaps even religion (you must hire so many Muslims), in addition to race.

DQ, you’re absolutely right that the quotation effectively describes affirmative action. What makes it so fascinating, though, is that the speaker has stripped away the usual obfuscation that surrounds affirmative action, and simply spelled out its Orwellian nature. Also, there’s no indication anywhere in the article that gays are being discriminated against, either in terms of numbers being hired or in terms of statistically greater harassment than their fellow employees. Instead, the government gives every sign that it has simply identified a favored, or more equal, group, and is drawing up lines accordingly.

One more thing: this is affirmative action based upon a self-reported behavior, not upon an obvious external identifier, such as race or gender. The only way for the government to enforce this, theoretically, is to spy on people’s sex lives. That’s creepy. Very creepy. Really, really creepy.

Or just trust what people report as their self-identification. I agree this is different than race, but I wonder how much so. It’s amazing how many more American Indians there suddenly were when assimilation policies ended and it became an advantage to be in that minority. Your comment 11 above applies as well. Many people will change their self-identification when it is to their advantage to do so.

MacG

DQ,

This reminds me of the Reverand Wrumbrand who wrote “Tortured For Christ” wrote that while being in a Russian prison they would get regualr beatings. He being a Jewish Christian would get beatings for being a Jew and being a Christian. That is until one day when they called for all Jews to stand “I am a Christian” then when they called for all Christians to stand “I am a Jew”. Both were true, who knew?

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